88 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



male at the apex* and female below. Glumes of the female flowers 

 ovate, acute, brown, with narruw paler margins, shorter than tlie fruit. 

 Fruit reddish-brown, green on the margins towards the apex, shortly 

 stipitate, truncate-rounded at the base, ovate-lanceolate, flattish on 

 the face, where there are no ribs, greatly swollen on the back, where 

 there are two strong and sometimes two other fainter widely sejm- 

 rated ribs, gradually acuminated into a flattened 2-toothed beak, nearly 

 as long as the rest of the fruit, with slightly winged serrulate margins. 

 Style not thickened at tlie base ; stigmas 2. Nut pale yellowisli-brown, 

 obovate-oval, plano-convex. 



Var. a, genuina, 

 Plate MDCXIX. 



Flowering stems few, triangular but not triquetrous towards the 

 top. Spike dense, continuous, composed of simple spikelets, except at 

 the base. 



Var. 3, Ehrhartiana. 



Plate MDCXX. 



C. Ehrhartiana, Hoppe, test. Koch. 



C. Pseudo-paradoxa, Samuel Gibson, in Phytol. Ser. i. Vol. I. p. 778. 



Stems more numerous in each tuft, triquetrous above. Spike 

 longer, somewhat interrupted below, the lower spikelets usually more 

 compound than in var. a. 



In marshes and wet meadows. Rather rare, but pretty generally 

 distributed in England and the south of Scotland, reaching north to 

 Moray and Lanark. Rather rare in Ireland, and chiefly found in the 

 north and west. Var. 3 in Seaman's Moss Pits and Hale Moss, ]\Ian- 

 chester: in the " Cybele Britannica " Mr. H. C. Watson states: "If I 

 rightly know that variety, it occurred on Wimbledon Common, some 

 few years ago, in a drying-np swamp." 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer. 



Var. a has the rootstock very shortly creeping, producing small 

 tufts with rarely more than 3 or 4 flowering stems and a few barren 

 leafy shoots. Stem 1 to 2 feet high, slender and rather wiry. Spike 

 1^ to 1 inch long. Spikelets about ^ inch long, tlie lowest ones not 

 much longer than the uppermost. Fruit ^ inch long, with a subhemi- 



* In the species of Carex with compound spikelets the disposition of the flowers is 

 described from what it is in simple spikelets, or the ultimate spikelets of the compoiind 



